What happens when a Christian leader you love, trust, and respect breaks your trust and does something so heinous and morally repugnant that it shakes the very foundation of your faith?
Now what happens when you are the leader responsible for investigating him or her, confronting the situation, and ultimately removing the person from leadership?
Unfortunately there is no formal education for how to handle situations like this. They happen, and if you have been given a position of leadership, you must respond.
Here are a key things to consider from my own experience.
The “moral failure” of a leader doesn’t simply affect their own life, but it also has serious consequences for those who have followed their leadership and trusted them implicitly to do the right thing when no one else is watching.
Treating moral failures such as adultery or abuse as anything less than a serious spiritual cancer that needs emergency action is a failure to fully comprehend the destructive nature of immorality and hypocrisy in ministry leadership.
Leaders are coverings for their people. This is what many in apostolically-led churches have been taught. Well, if the umbrella is broken and it is raining, those under it will get wet.
“It is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.“ 1 Corinthians 4:2
In the same way, for instance, when a leader is committing adultery and leading a hypocritical lifestyle while maintaining the facade of holiness, their choices leave the people under their care open to very negative spiritual influences. The church or ministry is not able to prosper. Or worse yet, it continues to prosper outwardly while it dies an inwardly slow death spiritually.
This is one of the main reasons the Bible tells those in authority to not only confront the leader who is sinning, but to also tell the God’s people what happened. The principle is written in the Bible to protect God’s people, not simply to shame the leader or his family.
God’s Word in I Timothy 5:17-21 states plainly;
17 Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine.
18 For the scripture saith, thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. And, The labourer is worthy of his reward.
19 Against an elder receive not an accusation, but before two or three witnesses.
20 Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear.
21 I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that thou observe these things without preferring one before another, doing nothing by partiality.
Elders are worthy of double honor, especially those who teach and preach the Word of God.
The people in the congregation are not able to even bring an accusation up about a leader in the Church unless there are at least two or three witnesses. If someone in the church does something morally wrong, the same standard does not apply.
So, there is both a higher and a stricter standard for the elder (Pastor or Five-fold ministry leader). According to James 3:1, there is also a stricter judgement. This is especially true when a church leader is willfully and repeatedly living a hypocritical lifestyle of sin.
I Tim 5:20 says that those in authority are to rebuke them before all so that others may fear.
The emphasis here is on those who are watching and listening, on the congregation, not on the one who has sinned.
Only after being exposed for their hypocrisy, as commanded by the Scriptures, the person sinning is to be offered restoration, done in a spirit of gentleness. (Gal 6:1)
Verse 21 lays out the commandment with explicit and earnest force:
I charge you before God, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels…
…Do these things without showing any partiality.
It could not be more forceful or plain. DO NOT SHOW PARTIALITY.
Do not consider who the leader is, what he has done in the past, or who is family is or is not.
We are not helping aid in the spiritual recovery of the church or of the leader when we hide so called “moral failures” in the dark.
As Christians, we believe that only when we walk in the light as He (Jesus) is in the light can we have fellowship with one another and have the blood of Jesus cleanse us from all sin. (I John 1:7)
We must walk in the light. We must bring the sin out into he open so the blood of Jesus can cleanse it.
This does not mean that trust is quickly or easily restored, nor is some position to ministry restored. On the contrary, it means the leader who fallen has the opportunity to fully come clean and be fully restored in the the light.
A public confession or exposure also gives the people in the congregation the ability to decide how and on what terms they interact with the fallen leader moving forward.
Without exposure, people are robbed of their choice to show mercy and grace in their own time or to create proper and healthy boundaries.
When something is swept under the rug or only dealt with at a superficial level, the only choice the people have it to interact with their leader as though nothing or very little has happened.
This is not right.
To the level of the leader’s public ministry, the same level of exposure should happen. If the leader was the Senior Pastor or apostolic leader of the church, then the whole church should know what they did. If they are a minister or leader on the international stage, then the exposure should be to that level.
In an article from the Christian Post entitled Pastors on Moral Failure in the Church: Don’t Hide It, Pastor Craig Groeschel of LifeChurch.tv says,
“Some people don’t think you should publicly name the sin. I disagree. I explain that a public leader’s failure deserves a public explanation. I believe in naming the specific sin (such as adultery)…
Brad Powell, senior pastor at Northridge Church in Plymouth, Mich., also emphasized the need for transparency.
“You can’t sweep it under the rug,” he stressed. “A lot of pastors think they’re protecting the congregation by hiding the truth but in so doing they’re actually denying what Jesus said. It’s the truth that’ll set people free.
If you are ever in the unfortunate position where you have to handle the moral failure of a fellow church leader, I hope that you will have the courage to speak up for what the Scriptures teach.
As Christian leaders given the sacred trust of leadership, we must give preference to the Word of God over the modern institutional reflex to respond to moral failures in leadership by listening first to the advice of church lawyers, crisis consultants, and PR managers.
In my next posts I will speak about the duties and responsibilities of ministry boards and networks in handling the moral failures of Senior leaders in the church.
